Rod McInnis wrote:

When looking for 24 volt equipment, take a look at commercial and "mega
yacht" sources. Lights shouldn't be a problem, but you may find that
electronics are scarce and very expensive.

Most newbuild megayachts are equipped with very
comprehensive AC electrical generation, regulation, and
distribution systems.

The last large (165') yacht I sailed on was wired like most
of its class and used a wheelhouse mounted bank of batteries
to supply the electronics. That bank was float charged by a
charger mounted in the battery room. No one is going to run
DC supplies from a central location on a larger boat.
Depending on the certification standards a local emergency
supply is required in any event.

While I have not bothered to search, the selection of marine
equipment available in 24VDC must be very very small. Most
all little boats use 12VDC, most larger boats use
110/220/480VAC.

There used to be a pretty good selection of 32VDC stuff but
even then most heating was provided by burning fuel
directly. It strikes me as absurd to run a heating or
cooking system on DC unless it comes straight from a DC
generator and even then, nowadays, why bother.

There are several diesel fired heating boilers available for
hydronic heating that can be supplanted with waste heat when
the main propulsion is online or a genset when it's not.

The megayacht industry has developed some outstanding power
management systems but none of them include low voltage DC
for heating or cooking. It just isn't practical, even in
larger scale, and certainly not when you have to burn diesel
in a generator to charge a battery to supply an inverter to
heat a resistance coil to make heat.

Rick

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:58:42 GMT, Rick
wrote:

While I have not bothered to search, the selection of marine
equipment available in 24VDC must be very very small. Most
all little boats use 12VDC, most larger boats use
110/220/480VAC.

Many mid-size yachts (45-80 ft ) have dual 12/24 V systems. 12 V for
electronics that are low-power and often don't come in 24V versions,
24V for Bow/sternthrusters, windlasses, electrical winches etc. Mainly
too keep the cables reasonable.


/Marcus

--
Marcus AAkesson
Gothenburg Callsigns: SM6XFN & SB4779
Sweden
Keep the world clean - no HTML in news or mail !

Larry,

That keel idea is a great one. He could collect solar heat with the
mast and pump it to the keel for storage. And of course this would make
Scotty very happy cause the keel would have to be covered with foam for
insulation.

Regards, Ron

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